Atlas Obscura is a travel and exploration company founded in 2009 by author Joshua Foer and documentary filmmaker Dylan Thuras, cataloguing unusual and obscure destinations through a user-contributed and editorially curated global database.
Foer and Thuras met in 2007 and began sketching the idea of an atlas dedicated to places left out of conventional guidebooks; they hired a web designer in 2008 and launched the site in 2009. The company has since expanded into a media and experiences business, with a daily podcast, several New York Times–bestselling books (Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders, and Gastro Obscura), small-group international trips, and partnered television and film projects. Its editorial voice — equal parts curiosity, history, and quiet weirdness — has made it a recurring cross-reference for travel, food, and science publishers covering the same territory.